` Black Ghost` in Florida

571 Views 18 Replies 12 Participants Last post by Sleepy78, 13 d ago

Lenny Carey

Discussion Starter · 18 d ago (Edited by Moderator)

Called the infamous Black Ghost , this 1970 Dodge Challenger is now residing in Bradenton , Florida and will be shown at car events soon . Sold on auction in May for 1 million plus dollars . An unusual history of this car is that in Detroit , it was one of the most successful street racers . The car was ordered new with a 426 , 4 speed and was owned by a Detroit policeman that was also motorcycle cop . The cop would race incognito , win and would disappear right after the race without socializing with others . No one knew who this guy was and after a number of years , the Challenger just disappeared . There is so much more to this story so you may want to Google " Infamous Black Ghost Dodge Challenger sells for $ 1 Million " , that was featured on Fox News . Apparently this car was so famous that it is on the National Registry . Check it out

Reactions: 1

1 - 19 of 19 Posts

Karadjgne

· #2 · 18 d ago

When I was younger, we had an old airport strip in my town. I used to watch the races there on Saturday nights. A lot of cops and troopers would also race, right along side the others. I thought it was great fun, watching those cars beating the cop cars. Wasn't til years later when my sister's husband (deputy sheriff) explained that they did that not only to have a peaceful, organized, supervised race, off the streets, but also to figure out who had cars/drivers they'd have problems catching if they needed to.

Reading the Black Ghost story reminded me of that, wonder if that went through the owners mind when he was racing...

Reactions: 1

vortec710

· #3 · 18 d ago

Interesting story for the MOPAR sites.

Sleepy78

· #4 · 18 d ago

Interesting story yet there is some questionable history with this car. Many Detroit Street racers of the era do not recall or substantiate the dominating win and disappearing cop that didn’t stick around and socialize about his wins.
Tow hitch on the back of a street racer, questionable at best???
50,000 miles on a “race car” that disappeared for months at a time????
Sold by Mechum rather than Barrett-Jackson? Pedigree questionable.
Nice car no doubt, but a million dollar story has some concerns in the Mopar world.

Vol64

· #5 · 18 d ago

Sleepy78 said:
Interesting story yet there is some questionable history with this car. Many Detroit Street racers of the era do not recall or substantiate the dominating win and disappearing cop that didn’t stick around and socialize about his wins.
Tow hitch on the back of a street racer, questionable at best???
50,000 miles on a “race car” that disappeared for months at a time????
Sold by Mechum rather than Barrett-Jackson? Pedigree questionable.
Nice car no doubt, but a million dollar story has some concerns in the Mopar world.

Look up uncle Tony on you tube channel and he says that the car is a scam interesting watching and make up your own mind

JKCamino

· #6 · 18 d ago

Yeah big woop, seen one you seen them all, personally I remember the Dodge M4S Turbo Interceptor, be ghosting people, Movie The Wraith.

I’m sure there is any equally famous elcamino race car, but we don’t need to brag for recognition.

ELKYBILL

· #7 · 17 d ago

vortec710 said:
Interesting story for the MOPAR sites.

X2.

Reactions: 1

bccan

· #8 · 17 d ago (Edited)

I’m still doing my due diligence on this car, out of curiosity . Presently I’m with Uncle Tony, no way a bone stock, heavily optioned car was a street racing legend in Detroit. The heavy hitters were running heavily modified and lightened, 10-11 second range cars vs what would have been a 13-14 second car depending on skill of tuning and driving it. Still, a valuable, highly sought after car but somebody paid roughly 5 times what it should have been valued. The hype created around the car is truly impressive.

Reactions: 1

squag27

· #9 · 17 d ago

bccan said:
I’m still doing my due diligence on this car, out of curiosity . Presently I’m with Uncle Tony, no way a bone stock, heavily optioned car was a street racing legend in Detroit. The heavy hitters were running heavily modified and lightened, 10-11 second range cars vs what would have been a 13-14 second car depending on skill of tuning and driving it. Still, a valuable, highly sought after car but somebody paid roughly 5 times what it should have been valued. The hype created around the car is truly impressI’ve.

Remember that the streets are a way different environment than a track. Having 600hp and no traction will do you no good against a 450hp rig that can hook. Honnigan's This vs. That series on Youtube does a good job of demonstrating the difference. Regardless I'm sure there's a fair amount of myth that fed into the legend of the car but certainly a good story either way.
Plus values on these sort of things are all kind of made up anyways in the grand scheme of things, it's like the same logic of why people pay well over a million for a real 60s Shelby Cobra when you can get a new one for $30k. It's the story of the history.

Osh

· #10 · 16 d ago

JKCamino said:
I’m sure there is any equally famous elcamino race car, but we don’t need to brag for recognition.

JKCamino

· #11 · 16 d ago

Osh said:

this is new not old ? 👍

Don350

· #12 · 16 d ago

squag27 said:
Remember that the streets are a way different environment than a track. Having 600hp and no traction will do you no good against a 450hp rig that can hook. Honnigan's This vs. That series on Youtube does a good job of demonstrating the difference. Regardless I'm sure there's a fair amount of myth that fed into the legend of the car but certainly a good story either way.
Plus values on these sort of things are all kind of made up anyways in the grand scheme of things, it's like the same logic of why people pay well over a million for a real 60s Shelby Cobra when you can get a new one for $30k. It's the story of the history.

Response from Detroiter that spent a lot of time on Woodward Ave. in the 60s and early 70s and do not recall the Black Ghost tearing up the streets of Detroit. I do remember friends of mine in the late 50s and early 60s that had a 32 Ford with a built up 56 Packard motor that sent many Corvette and others cars to the roadway of broken dreams.

Lenny Carey

Discussion Starter · #13 · 15 d ago

Interesting reading the comments that throw a little shadow on the reporting on the Black Ghost as to it`s actual history as the Detroit street racer to beat . Neat to read about some of the street racing that used to go on in places around the country . I wonder how much was put into checking out the story before the news agencies published the story ?

Sleepy78

· #14 · 15 d ago

I kind of suspect that’s why Mechum sold it rather than Barrett-Jackson. Barrett does an extensive investigation prior to listing a vehicle in their events.

Karadjgne

· #15 · 14 d ago

Detroit is quite a large city. That story happened years ago, long before internet, cell phones, social media. There could always have been stuff happening on one side of town that others were totally clueless about back then on the other side of town and as ppl grew up, got on with life and raising families etc and the 'story' got lost into history, until brought up recently.

Maybe that cop knew his car really well, knew how to get it to hook up, only raced when or where conditions were perfect for him, only raced idiots who couldn't drive, maybe ran aircraft high octane gas instead of pump gas, maybe his engine isn't as stock on the inside as it looks to be on the outside, we'll never know the specifics.

There's a new 'Black Ghost', it's a 5.7L Charger R/T that's made a fool of more than 1 Arkansas State Trooper, so far 9 that I've seen vids on. If it wasn't for youtube, there's few who'd have ever known about it, and even less who'd admit it ever happened.

Barret couldn't have done anything. At best they'd have found someone who lost a race or watched a race, at worst they'd conclude it was Urban Legend, but there's no way now to prove the story real or false, it's all word of mouth. Be like trying to prove or disprove the story of Robin Hood.

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Reactions: 2

CaptPegLeg

· #16 · 14 d ago

R U kidding me. I saw Robin Hood on TV. A long time ago.

Sleepy78

· #17 · 14 d ago

More from Uncle Tony !

Lenny Carey

Discussion Starter · #18 · 13 d ago

Hey , I read it on Facebook , it HAS to be true ! The comments and video are so good to listen to on this story . Thanks for the interesting other opinions .

Sleepy78

· #19 · 13 d ago

"Bonjour" to quote a famous commercial.......

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